1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to infant mattress structures, more particularly, to suspension-type mattress including a breathable material which is supported in tension over a frame structure for allowing the free flow of air therethrough in order to reduce the risk of suffocation or asphyxiation for an infant or small child sleeping on the mattress.
2. Description of Background Art
Currently, the medical community has no conclusive evidence as to the cause of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). However, the prevailing theories as to the cause of SIDS are (1) suffocation due to the infant lying in such a manner as to cut off the supply of oxygen and (2) asphyxiation caused by the infant breathing in its own carbon dioxide which may become trapped in a pocket created by the covers being in close proximity to the infant's head.
Breathable mattresses have been designed in order to reduce the risk of suffocation or asphyxiation. However, these mattress designs have been too complex in design, requiring multiple frame members or multiple mattress portions. U.S. Pat. No. 2,695,415 relates to a mattress construction for infants having a cushion-like body supporting section and a relatively thin porous head supporting section co-extensive therewith, with a bent tubular frame structure for supporting the porous head supporting section substantially in the plane of the upper surface of the body supporting section and providing an air space below the porous head supporting section. The thin porous head supporting section is designed to allow air to circulate through the mattress in order to avoid the danger of the infant smothering when he or she rolls over and lies on his or her stomach. The thin porous support is designed to slip over a portion of a skeleton framework formed from light tube or rod bent to form upper and lower substantially U-shaped elements. A problem with the mattress disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,695,415 is that the mattress is comprised of separate mattress sections including a specially designed body support section and the specially designed head supporting section. Therefore, the mattress is expensive to manufacture. Furthermore, because there are two separate mattress sections, cleaning of the mattress is still as complicated if not more complicated than cleaning conventional mattresses.
A safety mattress design is also disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,815,516 issued to Holton on Dec. 10, 1957. The safety mattress includes a receiving member for the user's body and head which is formed of relatively thin flexible porous webbed material, a generally rectangular frame member formed of rigid material across the internal opening of which the webbed material extends in a tensioned condition, and a mattress base member having a generally rectangular configuration which is provided with spaced apart upstanding spacer elements which are located at opposite sides thereof and which serve to support the assembled frame member and stretched webbed material a spaced distance above an upper surface of the base member. A problem with the safety mattress of U.S. Pat. No. 2,815,516 is that the mattress design requires both a first frame member for supporting the porous web material and a separate base member for supporting the first frame member so that the web material is suspended a predetermined distance above the base member. Furthermore, the first frame member, the base member, and the flexible porous webbed material all require separate cleaning.
Therefore, it is desirable in the art of infant mattresses to provide a mattress assembly which is simple in structure, self supporting, easy to clean, and easy to assemble and disassemble.